OARDC Scientist Elected Ag Engineer Fellow

WOOSTER, Ohio -- Ohio State University’s Ted H. Short has been elected a fellow of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE), an honor attained by only about two percent of the group’s active members. Short, an expert on greenhouse design and production, including hydroponics, is the associate chair of and a professor in the Department of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering, based on the Wooster campus of the university’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC). His research areas include greenhouse system design for optimum production, energy and labor efficiency; evapotranspiration measurements and cooling predictions for greenhouse crops; passive solar greenhouse glazing systems for controlled-environment plant production; and naturally ventilated greenhouse designs using computational fluid dynamic models. He joined the university in 1969. In the past five years, Short has helped secure funds totalling $320,000 to develop hydroponic tomato production systems for northwestern Ohio and $250,000 to develop the Ohio Composting and Manure Management (OCAMM) program. He was a visiting scientist at the National Agricultural Engineering Research Institute, Wageningen, Netherlands, in 1981. He received his doctoral, master’s and bachelor’s degrees in agricultural engineering, all from Ohio State. ASAE, with 9,000 members from more than 100 countries, is a scientific and educational organization dedicated to the advancement of engineering applicable to agricultural, food and biological systems. According to the group’s constitution, “a fellow shall be an engineer of unusual professional distinction, with outstanding and extraordinary qualifications and experience in the field of agricultural engineering. A fellow shall have had 20 years of active practice in the profession of engineering or teaching of engineering,” plus 20 years or more of ASAE membership. The announcement was made at the group’s 2003 Annual International Meeting in Las Vegas, Nev. OARDC is the research arm of Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. - 30 -